What You Hide

by Natalie D. Richards

  He reaches for me slowly, and I’m powerless. Hypnotized by the graze of his fingers against the side of my thumb.

  My chipped nails make me feel cheap and ragged. But then he runs two fingers over the back of my hand, and I don’t feel anything but his touch. It’s nice. More than nice, if I’m honest.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I did not mean to veer into full-bore narcissist territory.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I whisper.

  His finger is still moving against mine, sliding to the crease between my thumb and forefinger. I can’t remember any time I’ve been aware of such a mundane part of my body.

  My breath catches when he looks at me.

  “So will you talk to me now?” he asks. “Even if I can’t help, I can listen.”

  I don’t have to think about my answer this time. I trust him enough to tell him at least some of the truth.

  So I do.

  Spencer

  Saturday, November 18, 10:28 p.m.

  She pulls her hand away from mine before she starts. It’s like she’s giving an oral test, hands clasped in front of her as she unfolds the facts in careful, measured sentences.

  She talks for twenty minutes, and I don’t interrupt. It’s not because I’m such a polite conversationalist either. It’s because I’m freaked. What the hell do you say when someone tells you their stepfather tracks your calls? Threatens your mother? Tells you to leave? It’s the kind of story you hear about on talk shows, but it isn’t a story. It’s her life.

  Mallory doesn’t deliver the details breathlessly, amping up the drama. She lays out the facts in simple, unemotional succession.

  “So you left,” I say when she’s finished. “You haven’t been home since.”

  “Twice. My mom had to sign papers for the school to unenroll me.”

  “I thought he worked at your school.”

  “We had to go to the district office. Thank God.”

  “When was the second time?”

  “I visited her. I didn’t want her to worry.”

  I drop my gaze, afraid to ask but unable to hold the question in. “Why didn’t she come with you?”

  “It’s hard to explain. She’s been really sick with this pregnancy.”

  “What about him? Can’t you call someone? Some kind of…” I don’t really know what word to use, but there has to be a professional or expert for this situation.

  “They can’t do anything unless he breaks a law. It’s messed up.”

  “Even if you prove you’re in danger?”

  “I’ve thought of that. I’m going to research Charlie. Maybe if I can prove he’s hurt someone before…”

  “Has he?”

  She sighs. “I have no idea. And if he hasn’t, then I’m right back to square one. Waiting for the baby to come so my mom hopefully comes back to her senses.”

  “I’m hardly a pregnancy expert, but doesn’t that take a while?”

  “She’s due New Year’s Eve.”

  “You’re going to live in the library until after Christmas?”

  Her face crumples in a way that tells me she’s already considered the gaps of logic in this plan, and doesn’t have a better solution. The crap of it is, I don’t either. What could I possibly do about her situation? I’ve never even heard of something like this in real life.

  She makes a noise somewhere between a sniff and a sad laugh. “I know. It’s stupid.”

  “Not stupid,” I say, and I leave it at that.

  I reach across the table again, and this time our eyes are locked when I graze her hand, pushing the pads of my fingers against hers. I go slow, giving her every chance to back away because I don’t know if this is a good thing to do. Is anything good when a person’s world is falling to pieces?

  Her fingers flex against mine, and she bites her bottom lip as our palms come together. All the words floating around in my head feel small and insignificant, but this doesn’t. This feels right. Important even.

  Listen to me. When did I turn into a guy like this?

  Abruptly, her jaw tenses, and our connection breaks. “Spencer—”

  Scrape. Thump.

  It’s above us and faint, but Mallory jerks, and I stroke her thumb again. “It’s okay. Probably just old building—”

  Thump, thump.

  “Cleaning crew?” She sounds doubtful.

  “Not their night. The custodian and volunteer shifts are on the same calendar.”

  Another scuffle upstairs cuts me off. Now my pulse jumps. I want to say it’s nothing, but I’m not as convinced now. The police were here this morning and suspected the writing in the books was another prank, part of a copycat pattern. But what if they’re wrong? Could they have missed someone hiding in here?

  More vague noises drift down from a floor above us. I look up. The sound is distant but internal. Not a car door slamming or other disturbance outside. Not somebody jimmying open a window.

  Whatever this is, it’s already inside.

  “It’s the building,” I say.

  Something mechanical could do this, right? This is an old building with old pipes and wires—old everything. One of those things has to be making this noise.

  Another scuffle, softer than the first. And then a loud one. It isn’t reassuring. There’s no rhythm to this sound. No click-click-click of a stuck fan or gurgle-bang of a straining pipe. This is random—less like a machine and more like something alive.

  When our gazes meet, I can tell Mallory’s thinking the same thing. She disentangles her hand from mine.

  “I don’t think that’s the building,” she whispers.

  I nod, and we stand up slowly. The single fluorescent light in the vending machine room feels like a spotlight. Nothing but darkness lies beyond. Anyone on the lower level—even on the stairs—could see us. I eye the light switch, and Mallory slowly eases her way around her chair, careful not to bump it.

  I move too, feeling like eyes are following me from the darkness beyond the glass. My heavy boots make tiptoeing all but impossible, but there’s no noise now, so I do my best, inching to the switch. I flick it off, and we’re swallowed in darkness.

  I feel, rather than hear, Mallory approach. Her arm brushes mine, and she stays close.

  I take her hand again, and her palm is as sweaty as mine.

  We wait one minute, then another, my ears straining to pick up any remnants of sound. There’s a prickle at the back of my neck, but the noises I pick out of the quiet are nothing out of the ordinary. The heater fan whirring softly, the plink of water dripping from a faucet, the shuddery rhythm of my own breath. But here and there I think there’s something else.

  We leave the alcove, removing the barrier of the glass walls. Less muffling for my ears to contend with. Mallory’s hand goes stiff in mine, her arm taut with resistance. She follows in the end, pressing close to my side.

  The sound isn’t as faint here. It’s coming from the floor above us, in the hallway if I had to guess. I press myself to the wall and run schematics of the building through my head. Scanning my memory for a way out. I tilt my head and the noises start again. Soft thumps move up the hallway and back. Up and back.

  Footsteps.

  Someone is pacing.

  I think of the footprints Ruby cleaned. Barefooted prints. Mallory was wearing socks when I found her, and there’s nothing black or sooty on her. Those prints belonged to someone else.

  But the police searched every nook and every cranny. They even checked the tapes for the entrance camera for any barefoot patrons that day. So what the hell is this?

  “What are they doing?” Mallory asks, voice barely a breath, her gaze fixed on the ceiling, where the footsteps are coming from.

  I don’t know, so I shake my head, listening to the footsteps. Up and back. Up and back.

  The po
lice should have found this person. They would have found them, wouldn’t they? Unless that little girl was right, and there wasn’t a live person to catch.

  I heard a ghost in the walls!

  My throat tightens as I think of the woman stretched out between the bookshelves. The tangle of long blond hair and pale arm bent in a sickening angle. I don’t believe in ghosts.

  Do I?

  The footsteps pause suddenly and my heart stutters. A new noise, soft and high, drifts down from the second story, sending all my hair on end.

  “Do you hear that?” Mallory asks.

  I incline my head, not because I don’t hear it, but because I wish I didn’t. Dread pours like lead into my legs and arms as the sound grows louder. A rhythm that lifts and drops like laughter.

  Or sobbing.

  Someone is sobbing.

  Time to go. We can’t be in here with this…with whoever or whatever this is. I need to get us out of here. Right now.

  “Spencer.” Mallory’s voice is a harsh whisper at my shoulder.

  I squeeze her hand in response, easing up the first step. She tries to pull her hand free, but I hold it fast and lean down until our heads bump.

  “No,” she whispers. “They’ll catch me.”

  “We can’t get out down here,” I reason softly. “The exits all lead up the stairs. I’m ninety-nine percent sure this person is on the second floor. We can get out, but we need to go.”

  “We can hide,” she says. “That person isn’t here for me. It has nothing to do with me.”

  Pattering thumps move across the floor above. I jump like an eight-year-old caught out of bed at a sleepover, my eyes tracking the dark ceiling blindly to follow the now unmistakable rush of footsteps. Down the stairs. They’re closer now—moving into one of the rooms directly above.

  The browsing room.

  The crying continues, so much louder that I have to resist covering my ears. They’re running now, every step sending a chill up my spine. Wood scrapes and something bangs. Like a door slamming shut.

  My joints tense, ready for a sprint. But there is silence.

  No voices. No footsteps. Nothing.

  I tell myself to breathe in. Force myself to let it back out. I come to my senses to find that Mallory and I have tucked in to each other instinctively. We’re mashed together, her hands twisted in the side of my shirt and my fingers too tight on one of her wrists. Neither of us speaks.

  After a minute, an hour—hell, I have no idea—Mallory jerks me hard from the stairs. She’s not shaking now. There isn’t an ounce of fear in the steady pull of her slow steps. This is the Mallory who looks me in the eye and says what she means. I’m still a wreck, but she’s on a mission, and I’m all too happy to follow the leader.

  She moves slowly, deliberately along the back wall. I hear the soft hiss of her hands dragging along the wall. Then the barely there squeak of a door opening.

  She leads us into a restroom. There’s a pearly glow from the streetlight beyond the small window. Enough to let me see the curves of her face and the outline of three stalls. That light, or maybe the distance from the noise, brings me back to my senses, shaking the ghost stories loose.

  I need to get a grip long enough to figure out what is going on. Who would be in here? An upset employee? Possibly. Maybe someone in administration is working late and having some kind of library crisis.

  I check my watch.

  At 11:14 p.m.?

  Okay, it’s not that likely. But despite my sweaty hands and racing pulse, I know the chances aren’t high that a murderer would sneak in after hours for a good cry.

  “I don’t like this,” I whisper. “We wouldn’t hear if they came down here.”

  “Yes, we would. I could hear people going up and down the stairs.”

  “But those people weren’t trying to be sneaky.”

  “I thought that through. Whoever this is, they aren’t trying to sneak either.”

  “I still don’t like it.” But I can’t argue with it because she’s right. And heaven knows the police are less than three minutes away if we’re wrong.

  “I can’t get caught, okay?”

  The desperation in her voice convinces me. I press my back against the cold porcelain of the sink and eye the window in the back corner. Too small to be of any use. Mallory joins me at the sink, shoulder against my arm.

  “Don’t you need to get home?”

  “Alex is covering for me. I told my parents I was staying with him.”

  “And what did you tell him?” she asks.

  “Not much. He’s cool, though.” Actually, I told him I was going to see a girl. I’ve covered for Alex plenty since he’s been dating Ava, so I knew he wouldn’t push for details.

  “That woman who died in the library,” she says. “Do you think whoever was in here tonight was looking for her?”

  “Maybe. It’s a screwed-up way of trying to find her. How would they not know?”

  “Easily. This probably showed on only one newscast. Unless you’re from Fairview, it’d be easy to miss.”

  I wince. “My mom told me that she wasn’t from around here.” The words taste bitter coming out. “The woman who overdosed. Like that was supposed to be a comfort.”

  Mallory sighs. “She could have been from anywhere. No one plans to turn out like that. It’s just bad luck.”

  I take Mallory’s hand because it’s easier than telling her I think she’s right. It’s easier than explaining I’m afraid I’ll always see that woman’s body when I close my eyes. And it’s definitely easier than admitting I’m scared there’s nothing else to me—that I’m a nobody rich kid with luck he doesn’t deserve.

  Mallory

  Sunday, November 19, 6:39 a.m.

  We creep up the stairs and through the still-dark library. The circulation team arrives by 8:00, so we agreed leaving at least an hour earlier would be safest. I’m glad we figured it out early, because I fell asleep.

  I had zero intention of it when we sat down, side by side across from the sinks. For a while, we were tense and wary, on high alert for footsteps or voices. It’s not like the fear vanished. I don’t think that’s how fear works.

  As the minutes stretched into hours, I think we got used to the fear.

  That’s what happened to me at least. Boredom crept over the edges of my terror until I found myself in a blurry haze, nudging Spencer’s shoulder and whispering how I wished we’d grabbed a book or something.

  He pulled up his phone, scrolling through various, mostly unfamiliar, options until he settled on something similar to sudoku. It was a game I could picture a middle-aged woman doing in waiting rooms.

  When I told him as much, he shrugged and said maybe he was a middle-aged woman in another life. I laughed out loud. In that second, I forgot all about the pacing and the crying and the footsteps we heard. My world shrunk into the space in that bathroom, the solid heat of his shoulder against mine, and the comfort of his soft voice in the darkness.

  My eyes grew heavy and my legs went cold on the tile floor. Then I don’t remember anything until he woke me up, hand on my shoulder and the barest gray promise of sunrise lighting the window.

  “Are you ready?” Spencer asks me now at the bathroom door. He’s quiet, but not whispering. His voice is the only sound I hear. The footsteps and crying—it all feels like a moment we dreamed up in the night.

  His silence reminds me I haven’t answered.

  “I’m ready.”

  We move quietly through the downstairs and past the eating area, where Spencer collects his bag, and then we pad softly up the stairs, pausing at the main floor. The stairs keep climbing to our left, and I shiver, thinking of what we heard up there last night.

  It’s still dark in the library, but there’s a different quality to it—the promise of morning pushing danger to the back of
my mind. Spencer is still cautious, scanning the stairwell.

  His breath goes tight, and I follow his gaze up the stairs. Along the stairwell wall, I see it, a message scrawled in black ink.

  Where Are You?

  My stomach bottoms out, and my face goes cold. “We have to tell someone.”

  “We can’t. Not without them knowing we’re here. We need to be very careful of the cameras when we head out.”

  “There are cameras?”

  “At the entrances.”

  We walk along the back wall, past the tall shelves toward the red glow of an exit sign. Spencer unlocks the door and cracks it open. The streetlights and waning stars leave the world shockingly bright compared to the darkness of the library.

  “The camera’s up on our left,” he says softly. “It’s aimed at the parking lot and the back dock. There’s another aiming for the opposite corner. We’re going to go straight out, until we hit the fence, and then make a sharp left behind the dumpster alcove. See that brick wall?”

  I do, and I see the dumpsters in front of it. My instinct is to stay to the wall, but I do exactly what he says, and he follows right behind me. We huddle between the fence and wall, inching our way to the alley. He tugs me right, away from Main Street, but also away from the cameras.

  I’m surprised when Spencer cuts east a couple blocks later, doubling back toward Main Street. “Wait, where are you going?”

  “To my place.”

  “I can’t—”

  “I’ll get you set up in the pool house. Or my room. At least for today. My dad’s in Sweden this week, and my mother and Allison leave by seven. No one will be home.”

  “I told you I can’t go to your house.”

  He stops and turns, dark circles under his eyes proving I’m the only one who slept.

  “After the scrapbook and everything?” he asks, grinning, but when his smile fades, his expression is almost tender. “We’re not strangers anymore, Mallory.”

  He’s right, but it doesn’t explain what we are now.